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Welcome to Forward Friday this is our first in our new blog series! Please check below our new video jingle which we will be using in any video posts that we do from now on!

I want to be a millionaire!

Guess what, so do I… In fact we all do. So I have been doing some research and recently I stumbled across a new stunning statistic that 90% of new millionaires are made on the internet. At first this came as a surprise and then all of a sudden… it didn’t. In fact it came as no surprise.

Disclaimer: I do not know where this statistic came from, I saw it on the internet on various blogs and none of them had a source. However this is not the point of the post, the point of this post is to learn about how this could be possible and the power of the internet.

So in the new fashion of Forward Friday I am going to discuss with you what we can learn about the internet and it’s astonishing power in terms of business and how by understanding the power of the internet we can harness it! – and who knows, maybe even become one of those 90%! I will talk about how the internet is so powerful and what makes it so powerful and then look at how this can relate back to our understanding of how 90% of new millionaires are made on the internet.

The Power of the Internet

At a glance the internet may just be a place to talk with your friends and family, somewhere you can find new cool stuff and find information when you need it. But from a business perspective, it is much much more…. MUCH MORE.

There are a staggering 87.8 billion monthly searches on Google (globally)ComScore Inc, December 2009

This statistic was also inevitably found… on google.com. When most people think of the internet they think of google. When you want to know something, no longer is there a visit to the library, we can all just open our laptops or sit at our desktops and “Google It”. It’s so easy, convenient and quick. Instead of spending hours looking through books we can use this service to scan billions of online resources including the books in your library to find out what it is you are looking for. Now we can all be Stephen Fry!

Now that is just one example; Google and it’s many services include shopping searches, e-mail, maps and more… I can list at least 5 more extremely influential and powerful websites that you probably know:

Facebook – Worlds largest socialising website with over 350 million users.

The point is, there is no denying the influence and the power of the internet. Check out these awesome statistics in real time: http://www.worldometers.info

The internet breaks down boundaries

The power of the internet is caused by the way it allows us to interact with one another and how it breaks down boundaries which were in existance before the internets power was realised and harnessed.

Distance is reduced from 1000 miles to 20cm.
If you think about it, the internet means we can talk to someone 1000 miles away from only your screen (20 cm away or so). There is no need to travel. We can be anywhere in the world at anytime, in a non physical form.

Delusion
Any business can give the impression that they are the market leaders and that they are a fully functioning company, this means the consumer is more likely to give their trust to these websites.

Money
We can now move money from Australia to Sweden in 1 minute over the internet. And it doesn’t matter what currency it is in.

Viral
If something is worth looking at on the internet it can potentially go viral and circulate the world in a matter of minutes using the power of all the social networking services out there. This on it’s own is incredible if you can harness it’s power. Thus the boundaries of sharing with the world is broken down.

We will cover the power of social networking in another post but here are some staggering facts for you to mull over:

Globally, people spend 1 out of every 4.5 minutes on a social networking siteNielsen as cited by New York Times, June 2010

48% of social media users check or update Facebook/Twitter after they go to bed, 7% said they’d even check out a message during an “intimate moment”

There is NO boundaries. The internet is fluid.

Now that we can see the internet makes so much more possible we can start to see how this emphasises the point of it’s power and how it can be harnessed in business.

Enhances current businesses

It’s obvious now, but it most certainly can enhance current and established businesses, in fact, in some cases more so than if it were not already established. Let’s take an example; When music used to be purchased in the store on a cd it was a bit of a pain to travel in and buy the cd, I’m sure this has put people off purchasing. But when mp3’s could be purchased on the internet from the likes of iTunes, it became so much easier for people to justify parting with their money to buy music. You undercut buyers remorse before it even takes place.

Business start-ups made easy

If you create a business online, the overheads are much less than if you were to buy a premises. Not only that, you can reach the rest of the world rather than just your locals. Fortunately the internets fluidity and flexibility allows us to be even more creative and come up with new unique ways of making money as well. This is where new ideas are born and the internet becomes yet more powerful.

Consumers favor the internet

It’s no rocket science that business lies where the consumers and customers (potential) are. When we consider how consumers went about their shopping before the internet picked up speed, it’s very obvious why consumers choose to shop on the internet.

Before the internet, consumers would have to physically go into the shops (local) and see what is in front of them, make a decision (or go away and think about it) and then part with their money. It would be difficult to know if it was a good decision and also if you were getting the best deal.

Buying on the internet opens up many more doors which the consumers favor.

Reviews, Opinions, Ratings. – Before buying a customer can look around at what is available and compare, contrast and read other customers comments. They can also find the cheapest price. This is called intelligent shopping (or they like to think).

It’s minimal effort – consumers don’t have to spend a lot of time or effort looking for what they want to buy. This relates back to earlier when I discussed boundaries and the internet.

Reliable – The internet is always on, it never closes like a shop does and you can always find stock.

Convenient – It’s there whenever and wherever you want it.

Time frames

Although we discussed boundaries and the internet earlier we can look further into how the power of the internet is so great due to it’s time warping powers!

There is no such thing as opening hours on the internet.
That pretty much speaks for itself. If your shop doesn’t close, you can always take orders! Imagine that, the possibilities are endless. Unless of course you decide to make the website non-functional at certain hours…

Time zones don’t exist on the internet
Seeing as the distance has been shrunk from 1000 miles to 20 cm, this also relates to the fact that time zones no longer make much of a difference, people are always online.

15 Minute Window
The internet’s ability to make something go viral instantly has meant that a new age of fame has born. They call it the 15 Minute Window. In other words, if something goes viral it usually last 15 minutes. This shows how fast the internet is and how quick things spread. It also suggest how quick we can make money as well!

Marketing campaigns overnight
Unlike ever before due to the time warping effect the internet has with it’s ability to allow things to go viral instantly, if we can harness and understand what makes things go viral we can reach millions of people with a marketing campaign online, compared to the weeks to months of marketing offline. Don’t get me wrong…. The two compliment each other, and I would recommend both be done. However we can see that if harnessed correctly there is money to be made.

Putting it all together

Becoming a millionaire overnight

Now we can see why the internet is such a powerful tool in the world, it becomes a lot easier to understand why 90% of new millionaires are made on the internet. A combination of the ability to reach an unlimited number of people in clever and unique ways to capture their attention and the fact that the internet is the consumers choice for making purchases and shopping, means that the internet has unlimited power to be unleashed. Now it’s just down to you to come up with the ideas to harness the power of the internet.

Hopefully I’ll see you in the 90% 🙂

Discuss…

Please note this is an open discussion, please comment your input below. If it’s interesting, relevant and adds to the discussion I will happily add it into the post and give credit to you. Forward Friday posts are for discussion and developing new ideas to enhance business. So get involved, every post is a work in progress.

I hope you enjoyed the first Forward Friday. Make sure you subscribe to the rss feed and join us next firday, same time, same place :).